


if she crows, the sun's up

by Ericine



Series: Trust Exercise [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Assumptions, Best Friends, College, College Dorm, College Roommate AU, Cooking, Family, Friends Help Friends Fake Deaths, Friendship, Gen, Nutella, Other, Platonic Goodness, ROTC, Request Meme, Shenanigans, Sleepovers, Trust, Victoria's Secret, Wingmanning, cliff diving, friendfic, odd jobs, partners in crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 14:03:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3122906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ericine/pseuds/Ericine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>College junior Cameron Mitchell's expecting an easy fall semester. His sophomore roommate Vala Mal Doran's a lot of things, but she sure as hell ain't easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	if she crows, the sun's up

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a gift to my dear friend, whose three-sentence fic prompt (Cam and Vala friendship, college dorm AU) turned into this platonic fluffy monster of family feels. Slight (as in not even worth tagging for it) Sam/Cam. Warning for momentary reference to gore and a spot of (potential) violence.

**August**

Moving in junior year’s supposed to be a breeze—nothing significant happening, he’s got the hang of everything, and Cam’s got his possessions down to one bag now. He moves in with the sun, refusing the hungover-looking RA’s help, and plans to unpack within half an hour, just in time to watch the end of the sunrise through his window with the first of a six-pack in his hands.

He finishes and is opening up the mini-fridge to check if the beer’s chilled when _she_ walks in, and if he wasn’t confused at why she was in _his_ room (or how he didn’t hear her coming through the paper-thin walls), he’d be faintly amused at how much attention she manages to gather to herself with two steps through the beaten-looking dorm door. The bag she’s dragging behind her is bigger than she is, even bigger than the purse she’s got slung over one arm.

She looks him over up and down—he’s in jeans and a white t-shirt, which is dressed up for Cam for a day in the dorms, but it’s move-in day with parents swarming the halls. Somehow, he feels under-dressed in her presence. Her eyes flick over to his things (what little of them he has) spread out, to the UT banners on his wall, and back to the beer in his hand.

The look on her face is pure amusement. “Not that I wouldn’t enjoy your company,” she says, in an accent that he can’t quite place, “but unless you’re Cameron Mitchell, I’m going to need to ask you to get out of my room.”

She sounds older than she has to be (she’s small-boned, wearing _pigtails_ , for Christ’s sake), and he’s on his feet (more instinct than anything else). “I’m Cameron Mitchell,” he says, “but this is my room.”

“The names on the door say ‘Cameron’ and ‘Valamal,” the girl says. “I’m Vala—they can’t spell anything right—and you—” She pauses, thinks, and her face lights up with recognition. “ _Oh_. I’m sorry.” And like that, she’s done with him. She walks to the other bed, smoothly avoiding Cam’s offer of help, sliding her gigantic purse of out of his reach like her swerve to the left was completely planned.

He’s dumbfounded, watching her haul her suitcase up onto the mattress ( _strong_ underneath the tiny body and pigtails). “Are female pronouns okay?” she asks, opening her suitcase and spilling its contents out on the bed. The room immediately fills with the scent of something strong and fruity.

“Wait, what?” Cam asks. “Wait—”

“I mean, or I could just call you Cameron the whole time,” the girl says. She opens up the nearest drawer and dumps an armful of clothes in it. She repeats the action with the other two drawers, then advances on the closet.

“Cam,” Cam says, without thinking, “but I really think—”

“I like Cameron better,” says the girl. “But, back—”

“Ma’am,” Cameron says loudly. It’s more commanding than he wants it to sound, the voice he has to use at Christmas to get all eighteen of his cousins to go inside and wash up for supper. There’s just a little bit of his father in there that he’s surprised to hear, but that’s enough to make her turn around, eyes narrowed. She holds her clothes a little more closely to her chest.

He doesn’t like that look on her. He’s not sure why.

“Beggin' your pardon,” he says. “I really think that they just thought we were both ladies. I’m, uh—male pronouns, please.”

She looks over him again, and there's that feeling again, like he’s been stopped by TSA in the airport. Then, the moment’s gone, and she’s haphazardly hanging things in her closet. “I’m Vala,” she says. “Vala Mal Doran. My last name is two words, though. Remember that. It matters, even if you are going to be moving out soon.”

She turns around again, flashes him a smile. “I mean, if you want to move out. If you don’t, I’m sure we can work something out.”

Cam shook his head. He was gonna need Jesus a little bit more than usual today.

 

**September**

Turns out, neither of them could move out because of room freeze, which Cam was 98% sure didn’t work the way the RA was telling him it did, but then again, the RA was a senior. He was a junior. They all could care less. He got it.

Vala, it turns out, wasn’t bad at all. She wouldn’t stop wearing whatever perfume she wore (some scent called “Lovespell” that was apparently in all of her soaps too, though he drew the line at hand soap, which she replaced with some kind of unscented sparkly bar), but he really didn’t mind her floral glittery presence, and he told her so—years of growing up in a house full of women (because _Lord forbid_ one of the male relatives let it slip that something the women did was _beneath him_ —Grama would verbally take a switch to him with a “bless your heart,” no matter what the age) had trained him well to room with a girl, and she does something surprising: she _relaxes_ a little. She doesn’t stop walking around the room in her underwear (no matter who was present, and Cam knows that the entire building figures some guy got the building to let him room with his girlfriend, which he’d only care about if she did, but she apparently was the kind of person who _thrived_ on that kind of attention—the fact that it wasn’t true doesn’t seem to phase her), but she does stop making the “come hither” comments. He still keeps himself fully clothed at all times in her presence, even changes in the bathroom.

Other than that, she’s kind of a mystery. He’s always the first to leave and the first to come back (somehow, Vala, _a sophomore_ , has been blessed by the scheduling gods), and a lot of times, he’s in bed before she gets back, even on the nights when he does go out. He’s never seen who she hangs out with or her sit down and eat a meal, though the food in the fridge disappears (he doesn’t mind feeding her—feeding people is one of his favorite things to do), but for the most part, they coexist.

It’s been a month, and Cam figures that neither he, Vala, nor student housing care enough about the situation to clear it up, but she’s absent most of the time, so Cam settles in for a semester with the room to himself. He invites people over to watch the game on Sundays, always making more snacks than usual so that Vala can eat whenever she comes back from wherever she goes. If they notice _eau de Victoria_ hanging around, they don't say anything.

When Labor Day weekend rolls around, though, it’s rainy as Noah's backyard, and apparently school won’t keep Vala from going out, but rain will, and he’s surprised to find her sprawled on top of the covers (tank top and bike shorts—usually she opts for a sports bra and shorts, so this is overdressed for her) with a plate of chips and the seven-layer dip he had left over from the past Sunday. She’s tying back her hair in a ponytail—apparently pigtails were hindering her eating.

He’s just the slightest bit hungover (there was a pub crawl on Friday, and he stayed in town to meet Sam, who was passing through town on her way to an engineering conference—she’s in college a couple states over but doesn’t go home from college on holidays, not if she can help it—and they’ve always been competitive), and he’s about to reach for the water bottle he keeps underneath the bed when he finds the glass of water and two Advil sitting on the chair next to his bed that doubles as a nightstand.

He looks up at Vala, and she shrugs. “Lucky guess,” she says, punctuating the sentence with the crunch of the chip. He doesn’t remember seeing her when he got back, and that was close to 4 in the morning. She holds out the plate. “You want some?”

Cam shakes his head and struggles to get out of bed. He needs to cook his hangover food before he eats it, and that involves getting the hell out of bed and starting the process. “You probably want it more,” he says, swallowing the Advil dry, then downing the whole glass of water.

Bathroom. Bathroom, then their tiny excuse for a kitchen.

Closing the door behind him doesn’t stop her from talking to him, though. “Do you have Netflix? I’m probably staying in today too.” Maybe Cam’s whole upbringing was training for living with this girl, who was as much in his space as the rest of his family, even though she was rarely _geographically_ here.

“Uh, yeah,” he calls through the door. “Remote.”

“Thank _gods_ ,” says Vala, and Cam files that away under Things He’s Surprised to Hear Vala Say But Fall Right in Character, Now That He Thinks about It. “I stopped in the middle of season 6 of _The X-Files_ , and I think my brain’s been about to explode for months."

Cam flushes the toilet, and right on cue, Vala’s talking again. “You sure you don’t want me to order in?” she asks. “There are some perfectly _charming_ places around here that I’ve found. Like there’s this one crepe place—”

Cam’s hangover food of choice is pancakes, but crepes don’t sound like a bad idea either, especially since he’s just stocked up on Nutella, on account of the fact that it had been mysteriously disappearing (seriously, she was _never_ in the room—how was she pulling this off?).

“I was just about to make crepes,” says Cam, over the sound of the _X-Files_ theme song, (Vala was singing along to it, loudly).

“Lucky me!” exclaims Vala, as soon as the song’s finished. “Have you seen _The X-Files_?”

Cam had, a long time ago, on a night when his older cousins had decided to try and scare him. That was also the first night he’d tried their moonshine, so he didn’t remember much. He figured it counted, anyway. “Yes,” he answers, on his way to the kitchen to pull out ingredients. There were probably strawberries, too, if she hadn’t eaten those.

“Well, I’ll pause it for you anyway,” says Vala.

Well, that was nice of her.

Cam opens the refrigerator, ignoring the way his head protests the sudden motion. She hadn’t eaten the strawberries. “So, why’d you decide to stay in?”

“Well, it’s _my_ room,” says Vala, and Cam can hear her signature smirk. They’ve never figured out whether the room was supposed to be a girls’ or boys’ room—Vala holds firmly that it was supposed to be for girls and Cam (of course), holds the opposite.

“I mean, I wouldn’t know,” says Cam. “You’re hardly ever here.”

“Working girl,” answers Vala. “Very busy.”

Cam’s heating up the stove. “You pay for college that way?”

“I pay for everything that way,” laughs Vala. “You?”

“ROTC,” says Cam.

“So you pay Uncle Samuel by waking up at offensive hours,” says Vala, walking into the kitchen. “Do you have orange juice in there somewhere?”

Cam holds it out to her. “Where do you work?”

“Mainly on campus,” says Vala, opening the bottle and pouring it into her mouth. Seriously? (She did leave, Cam noted, a good two inches between the opening and her mouth.)

“And today’s your day off?” asks Cam.

“Monday’s a holiday,” says Vala, “so in a way, yes.” Cam blinks. Vala blinks back, an amused sort of mockery. “Wow, you really don’t do suspense, do you?” She caps the orange juice (but doesn’t twist it all the way closed). “You know that one number you can call, if you need someone to write a paper for you, if you need someone to hit your attendance button in class, if you need someone to pull the fire alarm in the middle of your test, things like that?”

Cam laughed. “Yeah, but that’s not real.” Vala smiles widely. “It’s real?”

“Yes,” answers Vala. “College is such a _game_ , you know, when you get down to it. There are plenty of ways to win, but people don’t know where their resources are. So, I connect them."

“You could do that from the room,” says Cam, regretting it the moment he says it. Why would he give her any more ideas?

“And have them be able to trace me?” asks Vala. “Better to keep things moving. Besides, that’s not the only thing I do.”

There was a mini crime lord living in his dorm room. Great. “Is that stuff illegal too?” Cam asks. He means it to come out inquisitive, because he still (and he’s starting to get used to this, now that he thinks about it) doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but it comes out louder than he means, and Vala’s taking another not-sip out of the orange juice bottle, but she brings it down on the table hard.

Cam jumps (and the medicine’s only half-begun to take effect, so that _hurts_ ). “I don’t appreciate your tone of voice,” says Vala. “If you’re going to be judgmental, you can just say so, but I don’t use our room for anything, and I don’t actually perform any of the actions I help with. And no, _your reputation_ will remain completely clean if someone finds me out, which is going to be pretty hard, since like you said before, I’m barely here.”

It’s silent for a while, the sizzling pan the only noise in the background. Vala’s eyes flick over to the orange juice like she wants more, but she seems to be waiting on some kind of principle.

“I’m sorry,” says Cam. “Just wanted to be sure there wasn’t random cocaine in our room.”

Vala blinks at him. “Why in the world would I keep that _in the room_?” she asks. “And you’re one to talk. I’ve seen your excuse for homemade alcohol, tucked into the back of the refrigerator like you want me to think it’s jam or something. We’re more alike that you think.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that ("People pay good money for that stuff" seems to be counterproductive), so he holds out the pan (it’s still cooking, so he needs to put it back on the stove, but it’s the least awkward gesture he can think of making right now). “You like Nutella and strawberries?”

Vala nods and walks back to her bed, like apparently that was all he had to do for her forgiveness.

“You don’t have to be so buttoned up all the time, by the way,” she calls. “I know you’re old-fashioned and are of the belief that a few scraps of skin are enough to make two people want to jump each other, but I assure you, if I was going to do that, I would have done it already.”

Seriously, why did he even bother trying to figure her out?

He comes back into the kitchen about twenty minutes later with a plate of steaming crepes and two forks (which Vala doesn’t use) before he strips off his shirt and settles in his bed. Vala nods at him in approval, the kind of nod that starts by moving her head _up_ instead of _down_ , and Cam suddenly feels a hell of a lot more comfortable.

They spend the rest of the weekend marathoning _The X-Files_ ( _so much better_ than Cam originally thought it was) while Cam cooks his mother’s recipes as needed whenever they’re hungry. They’re like two bros watching football, except Vala’s of the belief that football’s pointless, rugby’s better, and real football is soccer. So, they watch scifi, which isn’t something that Cam’s been _into_ , but Vala’s enthusiasm is contagious (and Gillian Anderson is the timeless kind of gorgeous, the kind that Mama points out to him while they're driving to the Sunday service).

Cam tells her all about his family, Mama and Grama and his huge family all over the world, and she tells him about her family—all three people in it—also all over the world. They find out that they’ve both grown up moving from place to place (though he admits that he doesn’t really feel like he has, because everywhere he’s gone, he’s had family), and by Monday, Vala’s given up trying to get Cam in on her “business” (“I’ll cut you in 20%! Honestly!”), but she agrees that they should set aside at least one day every two weeks to do exactly this (they decide to do _Star Wars_ next, then _Lord of the Rings_ ).

It’s the first Labor Day weekend Cam’s spent without his family, but he’d rank it in the top five, at least.

 

**October**

Something changes in Vala when Cam comes back from fall break. She’s antsy, leaves out more food than usual (she’s always been a little bit messy but usually takes care when it’s Cam’s stuff involved), and Cam’s wary, because he doesn’t know if this is going to be a good or bad thing.

It turns out to be both, and in Vala’s style, neither the good nor the bad is what Cam’s expecting. Vala finally convinces him to help her throw a Halloween party (“Between my connections and your food and drinks, it’ll be just _amazing_ , Cameron, please say you’ll do it!”). Cam finally agrees (she’s not lying—logically, they would throw amazing parties together).

Halloween’s actually on a Tuesday, so they’re celebrating on the Friday before. Vala’s connections apparently include an entire freaking _bar_ , a nice one, just far enough off campus that attendance can be controlled but not so far away that people need cars to come (it’s also gotten a little cold for Halloween, so Vala wears a long-sleeved shirt underneath her Princess Amidala costume, which she’s been working on for weeks—and yes, Cam’s completely stopped asking why he never sees Vala spend time in _class_ , despite the fact that they’re in _college_ ). Cam’s dressed up as Maverick from _Top Gun_ (he’d offered to be the Goose to Vala’s Maverick, but Vala wasn’t okay with either of them dying, so they went their separate ways as far as costumes).

The party goes _great_. They find out that a hundred more people than they thought are coming two hours before the party starts, but Cam’s always been able to cook for a hundred people on an hour’s notice. Cam’s tapped into his pool of brew buddies to provide most of the alcohol for the evening, and Vala’s got events scheduled for the first two hours—a beer pong tournament, a costume contest (Murray from Cam’s philosophy class wins, and Vala points out that this was _only_ because she held back from entering the contest herself).

After that, the party devolves into a general shitshow—the good kind. Vala knows a great DJ (Taylor, Taylen, something like that), and Cam’s taking a break from the kitchen to dance with a girl dressed as something short-skirted (you really couldn’t tell with Halloween costumes anymore) when he realizes it’s been a couple hours and he hasn’t seen Vala. He doesn’t think much of it though. Vala’s a busy person (and the girl’s chosen this moment to turn around, wrap her arm around his neck, lean back against his chest, and grind her ass into his crotch).

The girl (Katie) is really drunk, though, so Cam pays for her cab home (he tries to get her to call her friends, but their phones both go dead—seriously, where are Katie’s friends?), and by then, it’s three in the morning, so he figures he’s going to call it a night (he and Vala have to go back to the bar tomorrow to pay for any damages that may have happened at the party—he hopes there aren’t any, but Vala’s got money set aside just in case—they’re not stupid).

He’s only a little drunk (the cold outside sobered him up a good bit), which is probably why he doesn’t think much of the fact that someone’s left something on his doorknob when he gets back to his room (damn solicitors), and he flings it off (it’s gone from cool to cold outside, and he’s left his jacket with Katie—he’s probably never going to see it again) before proceeding to _trip over it_ as he walks into his room. He’s expecting pain, but it’s surprisingly soft, and he isn’t paying much attention to it anyway, because his attention goes straight to a sound—half-gasp, half-yell—from his room.

 They’re half-dressed when he runs in, Vala’s face contorted into a snarl as some guy's got her pushed up against the wall, and Cam’s on the guy before he can register Vala yelling _no_.

It doesn’t register until a few minutes later, when he’s trying to decide how hard he’s got to hit this guy, and Vala’s jumping at him, nearly on his back.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” she screams.

Cam stops. Vala’s eyes are wide, and the guy in front of him’s almost too drunk to register what’s going on. Maybe like he is.

Vala’s picks the guy’s shirt up off the floor and throws it at him. “Go change in the bathroom,” he tells him. He’s zipping up his fly, embarrassed, and he walks out into the bathroom muttering, “Didn’t know you had a boyfriend.” As soon as the door closes behind him, Vala turns to Cam.

“I’m sorry,” he says, hands open in front of him. Adrenaline’s coursing through his veins, and he can feel his face, heated in shame.

“Wait outside,” Vala says. Her face is furious. He’d never imagined it could look like this, and he doesn’t want it directed at him. At all.

He obeys, sitting on the chair by their kitchen. Vala’s clothes are barely hanging off her shoulders—she probably just has to retie her belt—but she’s never made him leave the room while she was changing before (he usually left of his own accord anyway).

A few minutes later, Vala emerges, dressed in a long satin-looking robe, hair pulled messily back in a ponytail. She walks the guy (now fully dressed in a _Scream_ outfit) to the door, all apologetic smiles until the door closes behind him, and she whirls around, her face back to furious so quick that Cam finds himself thinking of Mama.

“So, what is it, Cameron?” Vala snaps, slamming the door behind her to punctuate her question (he notices she hadn’t even waited for it to close to start yelling). She walks to the other chair across from him but doesn’t sit down. “If you wanted to fuck me, you could have just said so.”

Mama would be so disappointed in him right now.

He can't find his voice soon enough, so she keeps going. "Do you understand how—he didn't _want_ anything from me—"

He trips over himself trying to set this right. “No—that’s not it at all—” he says.

“So explain to me what the _fuck_ that was, because it looks like jealousy to me, which doesn’t make any sense, because as far as I’m concerned, you have no reason to be jealous,” Vala snaps, and profanity, his kind of profanity, seems wrong on her tongue—Cam doesn’t think he’s ever heard her say it before, when she’s been pissed off. Her diction is crystal clear, and Cam’s wondering just how strong her tolerance is, because he’s spotted her throwing back shots all night.

“No—” says Cam, and his hands are out in front of him again. _I’m a good guy, I’m safe, I just made a mistake_.

“Well, it’s fucking _wrong_. You bring back girls, and I never say anything—” It’s true. Vala seems to have developed some kind of sixth sense for when he has girls sleeping over (though, knowing Vala, she probably has someone across the hall just text her when stuff’s going down—his money’s on Ryan Dirk, who never leaves his room or his video games). “—but the one time—and I texted you, I even left that stupid sock on the door, which, by the way, I don’t understand—”

Wait. What?

“That was a sock?” asks Cam.

“Gods in _space_ ,” says Vala, exasperated. She leans down to the floor, picks up the sock on the floor, and throws it at his lap. "If you're that far gone, we can talk about this in the morning."

Cam holds it up. “My phone’s dead,” he says (he’d tried to get Katie to call her friends, which had sapped the remainder of his battery). “I swear that this didn’t even _register_ , seriously. I just came in and heard—I thought someone was hurting you—” He stops, because Vala’s gone straight from furious to pure bewilderment—even her hair seems to have raised itself in surprise a little bit, the ponytail looking more perky than before.

Then, she leans her head back and _laughs_.

She laughs for a good couple of minutes, and when Cam tries to open his mouth to ask her _why_ , she just shoots him a look (he’s not allowed to question this, not after what he just did).

When she finally stops laughing, she reaches her hand out. For the sock, presumably. He hands it to her.

Vala sits down and pulls her legs up so she’s sitting cross-legged. “You have a lot of sisters, don’t you?” she asks.

“Three,” says Cam (cautiously, _so cautiously_ , because he knows firsthand that not _seeing_ the anger sure as hell doesn’t mean it’s not there).

“You treat all their gentlemen company like that?” asks Vala. Cam doesn’t answer. He assumes it’s rhetorical, and he’s right. “What if I’d had a girl in here? Would you have done the same thing, or would you have just asked to join in?”

Cam’s horrified by that implication, but Vala’s smirking, so he figures she isn’t serious. “I didn’t think,” he says.

“Yes,” says Vala, “that seems to be one of your problems.” Well, damn. No one’s ever told him that before. He files her observation away to think about later. This, whatever _this_ is, is more important. “I guess some of the fault’s mine, though. We’ve never really dealt with this kind of situation before. As far as I go.”

Cam smiles weakly.

Vala tilts her head to the side. “Without going into my preferences, which I’ll just say are _varied_ , I’ll let you know that I had control over my situation. If I hadn’t, you would have known. _Believe me_ ,” she says, and there’s the tiniest amount of darkness in her voice, something that Cam knows he shouldn’t ever touch. “Though it is charming, you thinking you had to defend my honor, especially since I’m quite dishonorable in general."

“You’re not,” says Cam, and it’s the cold catching up with his voice, that his throat seems to be a little raspy. He needs to make tea with honey and lemon and drink a gallon of that (and maybe some holy water, if he can find some—he's still ashamed of himself) before he goes to bed.

“You’re so kind,” says Vala, and, for the first time that evening, her voice sounds like hers again—or at least the voice he’s used to. Cam’s starting to think that maybe they’re not one and the same.

“I really am sorry,” says Cam, and she smiles at that, which _feels_ like forgiveness, so it must be, and he’s so thankful. He clears his throat. “You want some tea? I think I’m going to need a lot.” He’ll make it with cinnamon. Vala likes cinnamon.

“Sure,” says Vala. She reaches a hand up to her ponytail and lets out her hair, which falls messily around her head. At the beginning of the night, it had been carefully hair sprayed and pinned into perfect Princess Leia buns. “Honest question first, though.”

Shit.

Cam’s about to get up, but he sits back down. “You never need to ask to ask me questions—you know, that, right?”

Vala lets out a tiny laugh, one that sounds more like an exhale than a laugh. “I do for this one, though,” she says. “Do you like me? Seriously. You can tell me if you do. In fact, it’d probably be better and a whole lot less messy.”

“No, not like that,” says Cam, and if someone had told him three months ago that he was going to live with an attractive (ridiculously attractive, if he’s honest with himself—Vala’s the kind of pretty that turns the heads of complete strangers) girl who walked around in her underwear all the time and got half her clothes from Victoria’s Secret (it was Vala’s self-expressed weakness) and be able to give that answer, Cam would have laughed, but he’s serious now. “You?”

“No,” she says. Vala leans back in her chair and furrows her brow. “If you don’t like me like that, then why did you act that way with that guy?”

Cam blinks, because Vala looks genuinely confused. “Because you’re family, Vala,” he says, and her brow furrows even more at that, so he keeps going. “I take care of my family. I don’t want anything to happen to them.”

He can’t describe what happens to her face after that—she looks something like his little cousin Mia all of a sudden—for more reasons than just their mutual love of pigtails.

She stands abruptly. “Just don’t do it again,” she says, and walks away. “I get first shower!”

Cam rolls his shoulders. He’s going to put extra cinnamon in the tea.

 

**November**

Not even a week after the Halloween party, Cam gets a text from Sam at five in the morning, and he calls her back immediately.

“Hey,” Sam says, bewildered but cheery (she always sounds cheery—Cam’s seen Sam devastated before, tears streaming down her cheeks, and he’ll swear ‘til kingdom come he could still hear a smile in her voice). “Aren’t you supposed to be in training right now?”

Cam grins, flexing his legs under his covers—outside, it’s windy like the second coming, but his room’s warm. “I’ve got the day off.” It’s a rare thing—training to be cancelled—but it’s supposed to snow like the devil’s lice for the next two days, and their indoor training center is undergoing renovations for the next week.

“Oh my gosh, that’s _amazing_ ,” says Sam. Cam can hear the envy in her voice. She’s doing ROTC at her college too, except she’s pulling a double major in physics and engineering on top of that, and Cam doesn’t know how she’s doing it (though Sam’s always been somewhat of a genius).

Even though it’s his day off (no training and no classes—this day’s never going to happen again), he wakes with the dawn—he always does. “What about you?” he asks. “You don’t sound like yours got cancelled.” There’s a time difference between them, but it’s not enough to explain why she’s up _this_ early.

He hears a yawn on her end. “I have two tests today,” she says. “I slept a little but got up early to review. There’s not going to be much time after breakfast.”

“You’re gonna ace that and you know it,” says Cam, and a little bit of the South slips into his voice as he lies back in bed. He lets it. Sam’s heard every incarnation of his drawl. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vala stir (he’s not sure when she got in, but it can’t have been that long ago).

“Stop, you’re going to jinx me,” says Sam warmly, and Cam can picture her—probably wrapped in some kind of blanket in the corner of the library, dressed for training but with a huge cup of coffee and a backpack packed with jello next to her, blinking through her fatigue.

“I can call back later,” says Cam, lowering his voice. “You should study.”

Sam laughs, like rain when the sun’s out, golden and sparkling. “It’s alright,” she says. “I’m pretty prepared. Besides, I’m pretty sure I’m alone in this library, and it’s been hours since I’ve heard a human voice. Unless you want to go back to sleep.”

“That wouldn’t be polite,” says Cam. “Besides, you know me.” He’s barely speaking in a whisper, but Vala’s sitting up, combing her hair out with her fingers, looking at the time, looking out the window (the sun’s not even out yet), looking _confused_. “Go back to sleep,” he mouths at Vala.

“What?” asks Vala, loudly, but Sam’s speaking again, and Vala’s not that interested anyway—she swings the covers over her legs and walks to the bathroom.

“Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that news of your party’s made it all the way over to this state—apparently it was that good? One of those websites mentioned it,” says Sam. “I heard your name drop a couple of times. You’re pretty famous.”

Cam chuckles. “In a good or a bad way?”

“It’s college,” says Sam. “I don’t think we’re supposed to make that distinction. Though it doesn’t sound like something you’d do. You’ve achieved great things, my friend.”

“So you called me to laugh at me?” asks Cam.

“I called to say that I want to see it for myself,” says Sam. “I’m going to have a couple days free before Thanksgiving break starts because my professors apparently want to leave here more than the rest of us do. I was thinking maybe I could head over there and then you can drive me to your house?” Sam spends Thanksgiving and New Years with Cam’s family and Christmas with her family. It’s been that way for years.

She proposes a practical solution, one that will save time and money (and he misses her—he hasn’t seen much of her since this year started, when she’s half in training and half in classes and half in internships, and yeah, her situation’s that improbable). “Sure,” says Cam. “You didn’t even have to ask.” Vala walks back into the room with a glass of water and raises her eyebrows at Cam. “Go back to sleep,” he whispers.

“Wait, do you have company?” asks Sam, her voice suddenly hushed and embarrassed. “I’m so sorry. I can call back.”

“No, no, no, no,” says Cam. “That’s Vala.”

 _That_ piques Vala's interest. She perches on top of her bed, looking at him curiously. “Your roommate,” Vala prompts.

“My roommate,” says Cam. Sam’s still silent. “Uh, so basically, the school thought I was a girl, and they stuck me in the girls’ room and it never got worked out. Anyway, I woke her up. If you came here, though, she’d love to meet you. She’s the other reason for the party—have you heard her name before?”

Vala’s smirking triumphantly, and Cam’s going to need to retract that girl bit later, or Vala’s never going to let him live this down.

“Vala? No, I don’t think I have,” says Sam thoughtfully.

She wouldn’t have, thinks Cam. Vala would keep her name out of things, at least as long as she was making money the way she did. “Well, come on over,” says Cam. “You know my door’s always open for you.”

“Great!” says Sam, an exclaimed whisper. “Hey, listen, I’ve got to pack up for training now, so—”

“Don’t worry about it,” says Cam. “Talk to you later.” He hangs up. “What?” he asks Vala, who’s sporting the biggest grin he’s ever seen her wear.

“Is she coming?” she asks, and Cam’s confused, because the punishment for waking Vala up from sleep (since she’s apparently a robot and doesn’t ever do it) is usually something harsh and cruel. This Vala’s bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

“Yeah,” says Cam. “Have I ever told you about Sam?”

“Not really,” shrugs Vala, lying back down. “Is she going to be mad you're—" She makes exaggerated air quotes with her fingers "— _seeing_ someone?”

Cam’s been going out with Amber Whelan for the past couple of weeks. It’s casual, but that’s beside the point. “Naw, it’s not like that. We’ve been friends since we were kids. Kinda like me and you.”

Vala sits up for that one. “It’s not like us.”

“Why not?” asks Cam.

“No one can touch what we have, Cameron,” Vala says dramatically, raising the back of her hand to her forehand and falling back onto her pillows. Cam chuckles. “She’ll have to stay here, of course,” says Vala.

“You’re okay with that?” asks Cam. “It’s a small room.”

“Sure,” says Vala. “I’ll even wear _clothes_. T-shirts and sweatpants. Robes. A kerchief. Unless she requests otherwise.” She winks at him.

“You’re coming for Thanksgiving too, right?” Cam asks.

“I don’t have to,” says Vala. Cam can hear the coffee maker click off in the distance. Vala’s given up on sleep, apparently (she hates coffee, only drinks it with ungodly amounts of cream and sugar when she’s really tired, which means something’s unusual with work right now—Cam files that away for later).

“You should,” says Cam.

“It’s an American holiday. I’m not American,” says Vala (Cam knows that, though he’s not sure what exactly she is—her passport says she’s from Australia, but Cam gets the feeling that Australia’s not what she thinks of as _home_ ).

“Your family’s halfway across the world,” says Cam (he knows this to be true also, though he’s not where “halfway across the world” is—could be Australia, could be Ukraine, for all he knows). “Come to my house. We have more than enough food and room—seriously, it’s like a clown car house.”

Vala rolls over so her back’s to him, but Cam swears he sees the smallest hint of smile on her face. “Well, that sounds like something worth seeing.”

* * *

Sam takes the bus and arrives on Friday night. Cam’s waiting for her at the bus station in his car like he has a thousand times since they’ve been in college. This time, though, he’s got Vala in the front seat.

The bus station’s a good forty-five minutes away from school with traffic, and Vala chatters excitedly the whole way, the chair reclined all the way back, her feet on his dashboard. Apparently, she’s never been on a road trip, which makes _zero sense_ to Cam for someone who’s very clearly spent her whole life on the road to a certain extent (he knows that Vala lies a lot, but he doesn’t often lie to _him_ unless she’s trying to protect him from some of the darker aspects of her job that she doesn’t want him to see and he doesn’t want to know about), but he shrugs it off. They spend their spare time telling stories, and even though Vala usually wins in that department (she’s lived all over the world and just _attracts_ the weirdest situations, though Cam’s pretty sure Vala’s a catalyst for that kind of thing—the energy for activation is a hell of a lot smaller when she’s around), it’s Cam who does most of the talking, telling him about growing up with Sam, meeting on different Air Force bases by chance. He gave Sam her first drink, but Sam was the one who taught him how to hotwire a car.

It’s the hotwiring part that wins Vala over. “She sounds _amazing_ ,” says Vala. “Is it possible she’s not human?”

He laughs at that, out loud, because, as far as he’s concerned, it’s not that far from the truth. Sam’s one of those people who’s going to grow up to do Great Things, whether or not the world’s ready for them.

When Sam gets off the bus, Vala offers her the front seat immediately (it’s sweet), but Sam turns it down. “Buses aren’t necessarily conducive to long limbs. You’d know,” Sam laughs, and Vala pulls her seat up in response.

Cam thinks about that for a moment. He’s always thought of Vala as tiny—she has tiny limbs, looks small next to Sam, but Sam towers over people (which she’s always lamented—Cam’s never understood why), and Cam’s pretty tall himself. He imagines that Vala’s pretty imposing on her own. Like a mob boss.

That makes him laugh, and Vala looks over at him, eyebrows raised.

He’s a little worried about what Sam’s going to think. He doesn’t want her to think he’s living with a girl _that way_ , because he would never do that (not until at least after college—that was just _proper_ ). He doesn’t think that his situation with Vala’s strange, but then again, they’re not exactly normal and he’s been living with her for so long that he’s just accepted everything (not to mention that Mama’s never believed in this ‘separation of boys and girls’ nonsense—Cam’s always been able to have girls over for the night, because Mama trusted him—and Lord help anyone who betrayed Mama’s trust).

“Is that Lovespell?” asks Sam. She’s laid herself out over the backseat, apparently with her seat belt still on, calling on some kind of amazing flexibility skill.

“Too strong?” asks Vala.

Cam doesn’t smell anything. He’s probably immune to the damn scent by now. If he tells Vala, though, she’ll go back to using it as their hand soap, which he doesn’t want to risk.

“Not at all,” says Sam. “I don’t really wear fragrance, but I like to walk through Victoria’s Secret and sample all of the bottles anyway. How do you feel about PINK?”

“You mean three-fourths of my closet?” asks Vala. Sam lets out an uncharacteristic squealing sound, and Cam realizes that he doesn’t have anything to worry about at all.

Sam won’t let Cam take her bag (she never does, but he always offers), and he prepares to move into the living room while Sam changes in the bathroom, but Vala’s leapt onto the living room couch with her overnight bag before he’s even zipped his open.

“No,” says Vala. “I’m staying here. She can stay in my bed so you two can catch up.”

Cam eyes the couch with a dubious look. What they called their couch was actually what resulted when one pushed both of the living room (if you wanted to call it that) armchairs together. It made a crib of sorts. Soft but cramped. And from what Cam could see, Vala liked her comfort.

“Besides,” says Vala, “we all know that we’d all be having a delightful snuggle party if Amber didn’t think that was weird or something.”

That was half true. The unspoken rule between him and Sam had always been that they shared beds unless they were otherwise involved. That wasn’t _weird_. That was just the way things had always been.

“Amber’s also pretty sure that you and I have some kind of weird _Game of Thrones_ relationship,” says Cam. “That’s the reason she doesn’t come over in the first place.”

“Is this an American thing?” asks Vala. “Everyone’s so conscious about their personal space.”

“Yes!” answers Sam from the bathroom, and Vala smiles, her hands on her hips.

Cam sighs and returns to the bedroom, zips up his own jacket (he’s going to be tired as all hell at training tomorrow, but it was going to be worth it).

Sam comes out of the bathroom. “I have a research partner in class who grew up around the Mediterranean. He doesn’t understand Americans and personal space at all, so he just stays on the other side of the room from everyone.” She turns to Vala. “How does this look?”

She’s wearing a leather jacket over a thin sweater and jeans, and Cam’s suddenly very thankful that the snow stopped last week. “You look great!” squeals Vala. She’s already letting her hair out of her pigtails, clipping sections of it back with sparkly clips. “Oh, I can wear my leather too—we can all match!”

Vala bounces off the couch and runs to her closet, past Cam, who meets Sam’s amused gaze in the living room.

“I think I’m starting to understand what you told me on the phone,” says Sam.

* * *

The bar’s a joint suggestion between Cam and Vala—more upscale than a college bar but sure to disintegrate into a dive bar after midnight. (“That’s why they call it the Cinderella Bar!” says Vala, who lets Sam have the front seat but spends the entire ride leaning forward as far as the middle seatbelt will let her, propped right in-between Cam and Sam’s seats. “At midnight, it changes back into its true form!”)

Sam and Cam have been twenty-one for a while, and Vala has a truly impressive fake, one that she made herself, and it’s enough to keep Sam questioning her about its design on the drive over (Cam thankfully gets there before Vala can start her sales pitch for Sam to start churning out fakes).

The first round’s on Vala, and Sam’s on the dance floor before she’s even finished her drink. Cam turns to Vala, raises his glass in a wordless toast, and Vala tips her glass toward his with a decisive clink.

“Where’s Amber?” asks Vala.

“Texted her—nothing,” says Cam. “She probably has a test tomorrow.”

“Yes, professors are asses like that, aren’t they?” says Vala. She’s long since tied her jacket around the waist of her sweater-dress, and she crosses her legs. “You’d think she’d at least complain to you about how unfair the whole thing is.”

She’s getting that light in her eyes, the one she gets when she’s about to make a “new business investment.”

“Vala—”

“ _Cameron_.”

“It’s seriously not like that.”

“If it’s not, then why are you still sitting here? Isn’t leaving your friend to dance by herself violating one of those charming but antiquated rules you've pledged your modern-day knighthood to?”

“Aren’t you the queen of the dance floor? Why aren’t you out there?”

"Weak."

"That's not the point!"

“I’m your wingman, Cameron.”

“I don’t need wingmanning.”

“You’re here to watch her, and I’m here to watch you,” she says. “I’ll dance when you do.” She punches him in the shoulder with the wrong part of her hand, the side, not the knuckles, but it still hurts way more than it should. “Bro.”

Cam sighs and takes one last pull of his beer. “You’re really annoying, you know that?”

“That’s what ‘Mal Doran’ means, in its purest translation,” says Vala, wide-eyed and innocent.

“Really?”

“No.”

Cam takes a last pull of his beer. “Ugh, come on.” He pulls Vala toward the dance floor.

Vala follows. “Do you think there’s a chance that your sweet friend likes women?”

Cam blinks at Vala. “Sam? I think Sam’s straighter than I am.”

Vala sighs loudly. “That’s a shame.”

The bar’s a really good idea. It’s the same DJ from the Halloween party—Talen or Tailor or whatever—and Cam loses track of how long they’ve been dancing. At one point, he and Sam both give bills to Vala to keep buying the drinks, and Cam can’t be sure, but he’s pretty sure his money reappears in his pocket after giving it to her.

He really doesn’t ask anymore.

Sam’s happy and flushed, and he’s twirling her when Vala stumbles into Cam’s side with enough momentum to knock him off balance (she’s small, and he doesn’t understand this). He recovers, confused as to why she still seems to be falling, and that’s when he realizes that she’s having trouble _standing_.

Well, then.

He signals to Sam across the dance floor. She looks at him and Vala, the same face she uses to tackle a problem with one of those robots she’s always building, and immediately walks over, pulling her jacket around herself.

“I think Vala’s ready to call it a night,” says Cam. Vala giggles and latches onto Sam, who hugs her back, looking half-touched and half-amused. “You ready to go?” Sam nods. “I’ll bring the car around if you’ve got her?”

Sam stops to button Vala’s jacket. Vala wraps her arms around Sam’s neck to balance. “Yeah, yeah, sure. You still keep water in your glove compartment, right?”

Sam sits in the back with Vala on the ride home. They take a cab—Cam’ll come get his car tomorrow. It’s not that far anyway. Vala doesn’t need too much help, though, just giggles and drinks her water while Sam walks her back to her room.

“Bed,” says Cam, when they walk in.

“Couch,” argues Vala, sitting on one of the armchairs defiantly. She promptly spills her water all over said couch. “Whoops.” Sam looks sympathetic and goes to the kitchen to get more.

“Bed,” says Cam. "Don't make me carry you." Vala sighs and gets up.

Cam and Sam tuck her in together. She’s asleep in minutes. They both sigh and sink to the floor. Cam pulls out two cups of blue jello and takes out two spoons.

“Sorry about that,” says Cam. “Vala will probably apologize when she wakes up, too. I’ve never seen her drunk before, actually.”

Sam beams at the jello, nearly inhales it, and looks for the trash can before Cam holds his hands out and takes the cup and spoon. “It’s fine. She’s great. You both are great. She’s coming for Thanksgiving, isn’t she?”

Cam nods. Sam’s got one knee pulled up to her chest and she’s resting her chin on it; she’s tired. “It’s late.” He caps the Nutella and puts it back on the shelf. “I’ll clean up, if you want to shower first. You take the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

“With _your_ back and training tomorrow?” asks Sam. “Not a chance. I’ll take the floor.”

Cam laughs, then remembers that Vala’s sleeping and stops. “You know that’s never going to happen. Besides, Vala spilled the water over most of the blankets. You’ll freeze.”

In the morning, Cam untangles himself from Sam (namely Sam’s giant pajamas, which are cookie-and-milk-themed) and tries to roll over her out of bed without waking her up. Vala’s bed’s empty, and they meet in the hallway, Vala wrapped in a gigantic fluffy robe, her hair wrapped in a towel. Cam takes one look at her face and just _knows_.

“You weren’t drunk.”

Vala smiles. “I’m a fabulous wingman. Also a fabulous drunk.”

“Jesus,” murmurs Cam.

“I will, of course,” says Vala, her voice barely above a whisper but still containing the expression it does at full volume, “be asking Samantha’s forgiveness when she wakes up later. I really do like her.”

“Vala, you can’t just play around with people’s lives like that,” whispers Cam. “That’s not right. There are other people involved in this situation. And also, she doesn’t feel that way about me.”

Vala unwraps her hair from her towel. It falls in perfect waves around her face—flatter than usual but no less dramatic. A wave of Lovespell hits Cam in the face. He wonders for a second if he’s started to smell like Lovespell too, if his friends are just too polite to say anything. It’s got to be catching, right? “My dear Cameron,” says Vala, eyes on the ceiling, fluffing her hair with her hand, mock pity in her eyes, “how sure are you about that?”

Cam looks back at Sam, who’s curled around Cam’s pillow like she was around his chest when he woke up.

“I won’t do it again,” says Vala, and Cam turns back around. Vala’s got one hand on her heart and the other raised in a weird gesture of solemnity. “You will be completely aware of any and all wingman attempts from now on. I really don’t like that term— _wingman_ —though. Why does it have to be a man? Why can’t it be a winged woman? An _angel_?"

“You,” says Cam, mostly to fill silence with words, because Vala’s never called wingman privileges on any of his dates before (and Sam _isn’t a date_ ). “An angel.”

Vala claps him on the shoulder. “Off to training with you!” she says. “I’ve taken a break from work, so we’ll both be waiting for you when you get back.”

That year’s Thanksgiving goes down in Cam’s family as the most colorful yet, with a seemingly spontaneous Monopoly tournament arising that’s so intense that the family actually comes in from watching Thanksgiving football to watch it. Cam thinks, later, as he watches Vala throw a fistful of colorful Monopoly dollars up in the air, that he really couldn’t have seen this going any other way.

 

**December**

The week before finals, Vala goes missing.

Training’s over for the semester, and Cam’s got an exam every day. He holes himself up in his room to prepare—better to study there than in the library, where everyone’s competing for study cubbies and personal space. Besides, he’s got the good food. His buddies know this and stop by every night for the study snacks Cam bakes (and the fresh stock of beer he’s got in his fridge, which he knows will all be gone by the end of the week).

It’s not until the second day that he doesn’t see her that he gets worried. Sure, it’s like her now to at least make an appearance in the room once a day, but Vala’s never stuck to _normal_ , and her job’s got to be heating up now that finals were happening and all bets were off (he’s sure she’s got a monopoly somehow on Adderal sales, though he knows he’s never going to be able to prove it). Also, she had to have some kind of final to take? Right? Because she had classes that he never saw her go to? She’s never been gone for more than two days, though.

He wants to call her, but he doesn’t have her number—he’s never needed it, he realizes. He settles for calling people he thinks she knows, including his friend group (Vala hates football but will produce fanware of any team he decides to support that day and cheer wholeheartedly if she happens to be in the room for the game), the DJ from the party ( _Teyla_ is her name), and even Sam, who has Vala’s email but not her number (useless because knowing someone’s first and last name is enough to know their student email). None of them have seen her.

“Sam, I don’t know what to do,” says Cam. He feels guilty—she’s studying for finals right now too. “My gut’s telling me something’s wrong.”

“I mean, is your gut usually right when it comes to Vala?” He can almost feel her biting her lip through the phone, the way she looks when she’s trying desperately to say the right thing.

“No—I mean, I never even know what—” He stops as the realization washes over him.

“Yes?” prompts Sam.

“Yes,” says Cam. “I do. I’ve always been right about her. The only time I wasn’t was when I underestimated her.”

Cam hears something shift on Sam’s end, a muffled voice at the end of the phone. “Talk it through, then,” she says.

“The only secret’s she’s ever kept from me are those involving work,” says Cam. “Things I didn’t want to know about. Things that would get me in trouble.”

“You think something she was working on went bad?” asks Sam.

Cam thinks. “Vala’s smart, though,” he says. “She’s always at least three steps ahead, but you’d never know it.”

“She’s not invincible,” Sam reminds him gently.

“She has to know that I’d come looking for her if something happened, though,” says Cam. “If what she was working on was dangerous—and I think it is—then she would have had a plan in place for it a long time ago. It would be somewhere I’d know about. Somewhere no one else would look.” He’s walking to Vala’s side of the room now, not wanting to intrude, trying to figure out where she’d hide something if she could.

There’s nothing in the fridge or kitchen. He checks the Lovespell bottles in the bathroom (he doesn’t know how she’d do it, but if anyone could, Vala could). Nothing.

Cam hears the muffled voice again. Sam sighs, polite exasperation. “He knows that,” she says.

“Hm?” asks Cam.

“It’s just my research partner Daniel. He says you’re thinking too hard. Somewhere you’d know about but not necessarily look.”

“Why does he get a say in this?” asks Cam.

“Don’t worry about him,” says Sam. “He doesn’t get out much—hey!” She giggles.

“Well, Jesus, what am I supposed to do? Go through her clothes? That’s so—” He stops.

“Nope, no, gonna need to say something over there,” says Sam. “Daniel’s starting to get that look on his face—”

Cam’s at Vala’s underwear drawer in two steps. He has to dig a little (does she ever fold _anything_?) when he emerges with the paper with the address. “Got it."

“Best of luck!” says Sam. “Call us when it’s over.” Cam doesn't question the plural.

The address is to a gas station at a cliff overlook. Cam drives fast and tries not to worry. _She’s got this. She’s got this._

He parks haphazardly at the gas station and gets out. He doesn’t see her—not that he’d expected to, but he’d thought there would have been at least one sign—

“Vala!” When there’s no answer, he yells again. “Vala!”

“ _Gods incarnate_ ,” he hears, a hiss from the bushes (the station’s surrounded in them). “You don’t _think_ , do you?”

 _Relief_. Cam stays still, though. “Am I allowed to come to you?”

“Sure, now that you’ve told everyone in the galaxy where I am. You can’t make another _sound_ , though.”

He finds Vala in the bushes, drying herself off. “Am I gonna get an explanation?” he asks, falling silent when she glares at him.

“Put your hands over your mouth,” she replies, and steps into the moonlight.

She’s _covered_ in blood.

Cam gets most of his gasp behind his hands.

Vala raises an eyebrow at him. “Good,” she says. “First, don’t worry about this mess—it’s all mine, but it’s been collected over a period of time. I’m not actually bleeding. It’s just a precaution. I don’t imagine anyone’s going to come looking where we're going, but if they do—” She pulls the baggy clothes off. Cam recognizes the morphsuit from the back of his close that she's been wearing underneath. “How good of a driver are you?”

Sweet baby Mary. “Better than you,” he manages to get out.

“Thought so,” says Vala, slipping her clothes neatly into a bag. “Come on."

They walk for about five minutes to a car that Cam’s never seen, beat up, dirty. “Where—”

“You don’t want to know. It’s not safe. Come on, Cameron. We’re going to get us back home to your delightful study snacks soon.” Vala opens the front door and dumps the clothes into the drivers’ seat, pushing them around. “First, you’re going to drive this car off this cliff.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Not with either of us in it, of course. That’d be madness.”

“Your body’s not going to be in the car.”

“That’s not the point,” says Vala.

“Okay, seriously, I know I’m not supposed to ask, but—”

“I’ve been doing some things for a very long time with some not very good people,” says Vala, drawing her hair up into a bun at the back of her head. “This is how I make that stop. Understand?”

“Will you be able to stay after?”

Vala furrows her brow. “If this is done right, I think so.”

Cam stretches his hand out for the keys. What else is he supposed to do? He's clearly stepped into a portal to _another_ _fucking world_.

Cam’s rolled out of a moving car dozens of times before—Vala knows this because he told her. Stupid dares with his cousin. Apparently that’s prerequisite enough to help his godforsaken mysterious best friend (partner-in-crime just seems fucking _ironic_ at this point) to help her sort-of fake her death over a fucking mountain in the fucking cloudy December cold.

Vala wipes her hand with a sanitary wipe (to be thrown into the car) as she holds his hand through the window. She looks nervous, really nervous, for the first time that Cam remembers. He thinks of Mia and the first time he had to tell her there were no monsters under her bed. “You know I would do it myself,” she says.

“You don’t have to,” says Cam. “So don’t.”

He keeps the momentum up as much as he can—suicide-pace—and rolls out onto the gravel right before, right before the car goes flying, right before the crash that’s going to bring the sleepy gas station attendant out onto the road to call in a weird noise in the night.

It’s the closest he’s ever felt to flying.

Vala insists on being driven to the shore—a different shore, further away (“I will not get blood all over your car, Cameron. What _will_ the neighbors think?”). She balances precariously in the back seat while Cam tells her about the time he and his cousins almost killed themselves skating on a frozen lake.

“it’s the ocean, silly,” says Vala. “The water’s not freezing. It’ll be just fine.” He lets her have the spare set of sweats in his trunk to wear anyway.

It’s nearing dawn when they get back to the dorm. Vala takes a shower so hot the steam floats outside the bathroom door, then gets into bed under two blankets, robe and all. Cam says nothing, just throws her the Nutella jar from across the room and leans back under his covers. He texts Sam: _Found her. I’ll call you later._

“You should study for your final,” says Vala.

“Been studyin’ it all semester,” says Cam. “I’ll be just fine. Just need to sit here for a while.”

“I think I need to sleep,” says Vala.

“No problem with that,” says Cam. “Fridge’ll be stocked with crepes when you get up.”

Cam watches the sun rise, and Vala sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Cookies to whoever finds all the Stargate characters in this fic! ;)


End file.
